ABSTRACT
If Marcel Proust's work as a whole is, full of pitfalls for prospective directors, some of the greatest difficulties it presents are enhanced in the fifth volume, which is even more introspective and openly 'intellectual' than the rest of the novel. Furthermore, the film brings to mind some of the core texts that analyse the relationship of the medium to fantasy, obsession and gender representations. When Chantai Akerman's La Captive, the latest in the series of Proust adaptations to date, the film world reacted with a certain amount of astonishment, but also with admiration for the director's audacity. To sum up on Akerman's narrative choices, rather than being a faithful copy, La Captive is in fact a collage loosely based on the source text. In one of the most symbolically charged scenes of the film, Ariane stands on the balcony of her lover's flat singing a love duet from Cosi together with a woman standing at the window opposite.
